Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on Sunday said that politicians should value the country’s national interests before expressing their views on certain issues related to Afghanistan’s foreign policy and national interests. 

“The discussion of the foreign policy of Afghanistan reflects the national interests of our country. It is not a personal or emotional issue. It is not a discussion that we forget the gains made by the people of Afghanistan or the sacrifices of the others alongside the sacrifices of the people of Afghanistan,” said Abdullah, indirectly referring to recent statement by National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib about US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalamy Khalilzad’s efforts for Afghan peace.  

During his trip to Washington DC last week, Mohib at various public forums — during an appearance at a Washington DC- based think-tank and in an interaction with reporters — described the US’s talks with the Taliban as surrender discussion.

He said that Khalilzad is keeping the “duly elected” Afghan government in dark and that in the latest round of talks in Doha, they were humiliated and made to wait in a hotel lobby. “We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t have the kind of transparency that we should have,” Mohib told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

In this episode of Mehwar, host Wahid Ahmadi discusses the topic with Omar Sadar, a researcher at Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies.